


Novissime Rosa est Aestas

by AnotherNamelessGhoul



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Earth doesn't know how to people, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 01:31:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16337162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherNamelessGhoul/pseuds/AnotherNamelessGhoul
Summary: Stories following an Earth Ghoul as he learns to navigate life with humans and makes a myriad of ill-advised decisions.





	1. Chapter 1

It was the night of the turn of the century and wine was flowing freely throughout the clergy and ghouls. There had been quite a party going for some time, and it had scarcely dwindled now, even as the grandfather clock rang out only a single chime to mark the hour. The twentieth century! New possibilities! The hum of it vibrated through the building, everyone’s drunken, hopeful energy mingling into something that almost felt alive in the air, some collective mingling of spirits that could only happen on rare such nights as this.

And Earth hated it.

No, hated was the wrong word. He wasn’t one to try and strip the joy away from others or begrudge them having it. He was just too new to humans, too new to so many voices and beings packed into such a tight area, all drunk on wine and excitement, none talking in a normal tone one might use indoors. It all made his insides curl and tighten with a need to run, to find somewhere were someone wasn’t reaching for him to pat him on the back or hand him a drink or pull him into a sloppy dance, run to some sort of solitude in the arms of the cold winter night.

But it struck him that it wasn’t proper and that someone was bound to tail after him if he tried to go out, and he was already the strange one, the youngest, the smallest, with the least grasp on human languages and social skills. They were all kind about it, of course, but he was self-conscious enough as it was and didn’t need to add more fuel to his own worry as he lay awake thinking of every blunder that he’d committed. Instead, he slipped quietly down a side hallway towards the dorms, not intending to go to bed (because how could he, with all the racket?) but not sure exactly where he would end up. He wandered until he felt a blast of cold air press in and seep into his clothing for a moment, giving a shiver down his spine. Had someone else taken his idea and left? He skirted towards the door to the outside curiously. He could see someone standing there, someone that he didn’t recognize, though he knew all of the congregation, or at least he thought that he did.

They made eye contact as Earth got closer, the man in the doorway regarding him with wide, half-terrified eyes, as if he’d never seen a ghoul before. Perhaps he hadn’t, Earth wondered. A new clergy member? The man crossed his arms tight over his chest and backed up so that he was pressed against the door, never breaking eye contact. Earth nodded to him but didn’t move, not sure what to do. Back up and walk away to release him from whatever fight-or-flight panic he was obviously going into? What if he was trying to break in? After all, who came to them for the first time in the dead of night, and on the New Years at that? Earth took a step closer. The man was wearing what would have been nice if impractical for the weather clothing, had his suit jacket and slacks not been torn and worn thin in places. His hair was long, the mottled color of sand on the side of a riverbank and braided neatly down his back. His blue eyes never shifted from Earth, like he was staring down an animal waiting to attack, and Earth stared back at him, enamored for reasons he wasn’t quite sure of, memorizing his features, tracing them with his eyes. Then he cast one last worried glance at Earth, turned, and bolted down the hallway towards Papa Nihil’s study. 

Earth watched as the door opened and the man disappeared inside, dragging a rather large backpack in behind him. So he was staying, then? Earth stood there for a bit, waiting, and then turned back down towards the dorms, crawling into bed and letting curiosity reign until he drifted off to sleep, the sounds of the celebration still ringing in his ears.


	2. Chapter 2

It was something like noon but Earth was still curled up asleep in his bed, nothing but forked tail poking out from within the mounds of blankets he had slowly been amassing. He was practically nocturnal most days, sleeping until dusk and then wandering out. He liked the night; it was quiet and there wasn’t anyone seeking him out to fix up wilted vegetables or a dying houseplant like it was some sort of parlor trick. Anything he could do during the day, he figured, he could do at night, but without the glare of the sun in his eyes and people interrupting him.

His sleep was interrupted by a knock at the door, so quiet and tentative that he could almost have played it off as imagination had it not happened again. His tail slashed against the bedframe in annoyance, and he poked his head out of the covers, hoping maybe, maybe if he ignored it, it would go away.

Another knock, a little louder.

He sighed and clawed his way out from the blanket nest, casting them to the side, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He grabbed his mask and slid it on, to Hell with getting properly dressed, otherwise. He answered the door shirtless and in flannel sleep pants, still grumbling to himself about the intrusion.

And there he was, again, standing in the doorway, worrying with his cuticles, which already looked ragged and bloody. Earth hadn’t even seen him in a week, hadn’t thought about him much after the initial encounter. He jumped when the door opened as if he hadn’t truly expected a response. Earth cocked his head to the side, waiting for him to say something, not sure that he wanted to stand half-dressed in the doorway making awkward eye contact with a stranger all day.

“I, uh,” he stumbled his words, and Earth deepened the head tilt. Spit it out, he thought. Lucifer, I’m not that intimidating. 

“They sent me to you?” He mumbled. “Some of the higher-ranking members of the clergy, I mean. Um.” 

He thrust his arms forwards towards the ghoul and Earth jumped before realizing he was displaying his forearms, showing a splatter-pattern of harsh, ugly burns from wrist to elbow, fresh but already swollen and blistering. Earth let out a small hiss of sympathy and softened a little.

“They didn’t send you to Omega? Or to another Aether ghoul?” he asked, reaching out to slide his hands under the man’s arms, lifting them to get a better look. “Or the infirmary?” He knew better than to question too much what was asked of him, even if it did seem to make little sense and interrupt his sleep. “That’s alright. I can fix it.” He glanced around. There was nowhere else for them to go, really, except for into his room. It felt odd and private but he stepped to the side and allowed the man to enter, leaving the door propped open behind them.   
He grabbed a shirt and wriggled into it so that he felt a little less bare and gestured for the man to sit on the edge of his bed, shoving blankets and extra pillows aside.

“So you’re… Earth?” he asked.

“Mhm.” He was already rifling around his table, finding the right plants, finding his mortar and pestle. “And you?”

“Oh, uh, Fletcher. Sorry.” And still, that fidgeting with his hands. Earth had half a mind to pull them apart and still them, but he didn’t. 

“I assume there’s some story here.” He plucked a few leaves from a deep purple plant, hummed quietly as he rubbed them between his fingers. 

“Um, about the burns?” He tripped over the words again for a moment, stuttered. “Ritual gone, um, not great.” 

He shrugged, as if that were enough explanation, and Earth guessed that it was going to have to be. Better than making him take twenty minutes to sort out a coherent sentence. He pulled a small crystal vial from a drawer in his desk and added a few drops of liquid to the mortar. “Just your arms?”

“Uh.” Fletcher started to tug at his shirt before Earth could stop him, tearing the fabric away from burns across his chest and torso. It took him a moment for the pain to register on his face, but as he looked down at the wounds he breathed out sharply and closed his eyes, wavering.

“Lucifer’s sake.” Earth muttered, grabbing him by the shoulders and steering him towards the pillows. “At least sit back, I can’t fix a broken bone if you fall over.” This was not what he’d been expecting to wake up to. A little bit of warning first, he thought, someone telling him that he was going to be playing nurse at the clergy’s whim, something. He sighed and continued working at crushing the herbs into a paste, watching the rapidly paling man half-lying in his bed. “I don’t see how you even managed to burn yourself like this…” 

Fletcher said nothing towards the question and Earth plodded off to his bathroom, coming back with a damp cloth. Fletcher shied away from the touch almost involuntarily, like a cornered, frightened animal.

“Stop that.” Earth clicked his tongue. “I wouldn’t have brought you in here if I was going to hurt you.” He reached out again, taking Fletcher’s right arm, beginning to clean the wound. “I mean, this is going to hurt, but I’m not getting any sort of joy from it.” He dampened the cloth again and started on the other arm. 

“Do you like it here?”

“Pardon?” Earth glanced up at him. His eyes were still closed, firmly ignoring Earth’s ministrations on his burns. It was such a sudden question that it took a moment to register. “Like it? It’s… fine. I mean, it’s home, I guess?” He hadn’t ever really considered it. There was always enough food and his bed was nice. Anything else was a bonus. “Why?”

“I just-“ He hissed as Earth ran his fingers across his chest. Part of the fabric he’d been wearing had stuck to the blisters and fused onto the wound. “I don’t know. Wondered.”

“You’re new here. I saw you come in the other night.” Earth knew that he was being nosy, but he figured that the talking would distract Fletcher from what he was doing, so it could be justified. “Are you staying with us long-term?”

“I. Um, yeah, I don’t think I’ll be leaving.” 

“What brought you here to begin with?” He was treading on thin ice, probably, but he was curious, and he didn’t know if he’d ever have Fletcher captive again. There was something about him that caught his interest in a way that he couldn’t quite explain to himself.

Fletcher clammed up almost immediately, a look on his face as if he were searching for words that wouldn’t come, some vague terror lying just below the surface. Earth cut him off the hook before he could flounder any harder, feeling a bit guilty for putting him in the situation to begin with.

“At any rate, you’re safe here. Except, I guess, from accidents during rituals?”

Fletcher gave him a wan smile and fell quiet again.

“This is not going to be a fun part.” Earth took the damp cloth and rubbed harshly over the parts of his chest that the clothing had stuck to. Fletcher brought his hand to his mouth, and earth realized he was biting down on the meaty part by his thumb, muffling any noises of pain from coming through. Earth worked as quickly as he could without causing more damage to the angry flesh, mumbling apologies under his breath. When Fletcher pulled his hand away from his face again he had drawn little beads of blood along the surface.

“Almost done.” Earth mumbled, sympathetic. It had to hurt like a bitch, he was sure. He sat his rag aside and reached for the poultice he’d made, shuffling around his drawers again for a clean roll of bandage. “This is going to burn like Hell, but it’ll help them heal faster. You don’t want an infection.”

Fletcher nodded, obviously trying to steel himself against it. Earth offered out his non-dominant hand, the only comfort he could think of. “Squeeze if you need to. You aren’t going to hurt me.” 

Fletcher paused for a moment, shied back, and then grabbed Earth’s hand. Earth scooped up some of the medicine on his fingertips and started rubbing a thick layer over the blisters and open flesh. Fletcher made a soft, pained whimper, and Earth felt his fingernails dig into the back of his hand.

“I know, I know.” He finished the first arm. “You’re going to have to switch hands. I need that arm.” It was clumsier, rubbing the medicine on with his left hand, but he got the job done and then freed himself from Fletcher’s grasp and wound the bandages around them both, tying off the ends. “The stinging won’t last for that long. It’ll start to feel cool soon.” 

The chest was going to be the worst part, Earth was sure. He felt bad doing it but there wasn’t any other way, at least none that he knew about. “Just be still and it’ll be quick, okay? Then we’re done.” He started on the worst of it, almost directly over the breastbone, and Fletcher clenched his jaw so tightly that Earth could hear his teeth grind. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, and his breathing grew heavier.

“ ‘Salright,” Earth muttered, working past the worst of it towards his collarbones. Fletcher let out a hard breath and pushed further back into the pillows. “It’s okay, it’s done, see?” He pressed an arm behind Fletcher’s back, propping him up. “You’ve got to sit forwards so I can get the bandage around.” If Fletcher had been pale to begin with, all of the color was gone from his face now. He finally opened his eyes again, watching Earth, quiet.

“If you need to gather yourself you can rest a while.” Earth truly wanted his bed back, wanted to sleep a few more hours and forget the morning he’d had, but he wouldn’t kick the man out of it, felt guilty for even thinking of it, really. “If not, just change your bandages once a day, starting tomorrow. You shouldn’t need any more of the salve, it kicks in pretty fast. They’ll do it for you in the infirmary, I’m sure.” 

Fletcher nodded curtly. He’d bounced back incredibly fast, to his credit. He shifted to the edge of the bed and Earth reached out to him, half expecting him to fall when he tried to stand. He eased on his shirt, pulling it away from the bandages as he did so, and then made for the doorway like he couldn’t get out quickly enough. He cast a look backwards. “Thank you. Really, thank you.” And then he was gone, into the hallway, leaving Earth to try and gather the pieces of what had happened.

Earth crawled back into bed, but sleep hadn’t found him yet when, sometime later, there was another soft knock at the door. He swore in ghoulish. Who had they sent him now? But when he opened the door, there was nothing but a small potted violet on the stoop. It was in full bloom, covered in royal purple flowers, beautiful. He glanced around but saw nobody. He picked up the small plant, smiled a little to himself, and brought it in to his windowsill, mind heavy with questions.


End file.
